1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a PC CardBus structure, and more particularly, to a structure of PC CardBus for notebook computers that integrates at least one PC CardBus.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The standard of conventional PC Card for notebook computers has a long history. In the early 90's, ISA was set as the standard of the internal transferring bus with a mere 16 MB/s theoretical transferring rate. Later, a PCI standard of a 32-bit CardBus as the transferring bus was set and has never been replaced until now. However, the transferring rate and size of the current standard of CardBus are no longer suitable for the needs nowadays. Replacing the current CardBus standard with a new specification is urgently needed.
The PCMCIA society officially announced the ExpressCard to replace the CardBus standard of the conventional PC Card in this year's IDF. The most important feature of the ExpressCard is its high compatibility with PCI Express and USB 2.0. Being different from the CardBus based on PCI, ExpressCard does not need an extra controller if a system is supported with the PCI Express 1× or USB 2.0 and the connector can be integrated onto the motherboard with a mere 26 pins. Compared with a CardBus with 68 pins and an extra controller with 200 pins, the production cost of the ExpressCard can be significantly reduced. The transferring rate of the PCI Express 1× already reaches 300 MB/S, which outperforms current PCI buses and becomes the new generation of the high-speed transferring interface for notebook computers.
Please refer to FIG. 1, which is a 3-D schematic drawing of a conventional PC CardBus 1. The PC CardBus comprises a body 11, one end of which has a computer connection port 12 while the other end has an outer body 13. One side of the outer body has a first plug-in port 14, a second plug-in port 15, and a power port 16. The first or second plug-in port is capable of plugging in external peripherals which interface can be an IEEE 1394, a USB, or other interfaces. Since the power port is arranged between those two plug-in ports, interference can occur between connection cables so that the power cord or the connection cables may be loosen when they are all connected at the same time and the Card Bus may malfunction.